Why Paris Lay Burning

It is not just a question of why Paris was burning for days in July. A deeper analysis should be made on the basis of a comprehensive review of the factors that led to the street fire and fury as well as new strategies for positively timely intervention. Blaming the migrants exclusively is a pathetically lame excuse. Race does play a role in many countries. European nations and the United States are no exceptions.

Turkey’s entry to the European Union has been delayed by decades. An important NATO member, Turkey has remained eager for years to join as a partner in the EU. Its desire remains unfulfilled, ostensibly on account of its human rights records and governance style being among the factors not meeting EU “standards”. Turkey suspects its status as a Muslim majority country to be the cause of the blockage. There is no written rule that EU members should be Christian majority. That so far they all are so could be argued as a stunning coincidence and might even merit a big benefit of the bigger doubt. 

A glaring irony is that the same media would be prompt at coming down heavily upon other countries where the majority populations are Muslim or Hindu. Lack of uniformity when covering similar conditions in different places has eaten into the very vitals of professional journalism. 

Discrepancy 

Sections of mainstream media in India, which prides in being the world’s “largest democracy”, came out strongly on what they assessed as deliberate policy of Western media in downplaying the recent riot in France. Whereas the Indian media might not be off the mark in charging the Western news outlets of underplaying the violence and the causes that led to the street violence, it is no less true that the Indian media, too, are overpowered by their sense of unquestioned patriotic duty to defend the government’s foreign policy and related activities.

Likewise, the Global Times, China’s most authoritative news outlet, views the riots in France as a negative aspect of Western development models. Indeed, more than 1,350 cars were set on fire. being set ablaze. More than 45,000 police officers, backed by light armored vehicles, were deployed to quell street violence and reassure the public that no stone would be left unturned for maintaining law and order. 

Opposition leader Marine Le Pen made stinging comments on President Emmanuel Macron’s handling of the riots: “what have you done with our country by implanting zones of unlawful use? What have you done when you let yourself be communisalised, criminalised? What have you done to transform our country... to make a hell?” Some France news media called for quick reforms in the police system and effective measures to confront racial discrimination. The big disparity between the rich and the poor classes were among the causes that contributed to the long spell of riots.

The Global Times commented: “The riots in France appear to be driven by opposition to institutional racism. However, so many people took to the streets. They were fuelled by anger toward social injustice.” In response to a statement by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation for collective action to prevent similar such incidents in the future, Swedish government condemned the “Islamophobic” incident as “Islamophobic, offensive, disrespectful, and a clear provocation.” 

The Macron government has banned protests in specific parts of the capital Paris. Even fireworks have been banned. Racism is an issue that comes up every now and then when some incidents occur, resulting in the harm inflicted upon a marginalised group member. Class system is well-entrenched in much of the West. The United Kingdom’s aristocracy, in a country where 45 per cent of the population reminisce “with pride” imperial Britain, which virtually evaporated within a decade after the end of World War II, continues netting the top jobs and public positions in vastly disproportionate manner. 

Which means legacy culture, more than pure merit, plays a vital role in the discrimination that the general people suffer. Capitalism being the ultimate ideological truth for the entire rich West, with some leaders more than hinting that nuclear weapons would be triggered as a last resort if their industrial and other economic interests faced grave challenges.

Clinical reciprocity

It is from such attitude overused for decades, with complacency and indifference to the potentially adverse fallout that eroded the credibility of many a powerful capital in the international landscape. In the process, they overlooked the emerging alternatives on technological, economic and ideological fronts. The news media commented on the horrific disturbances that showed the United States was not alone in struggles with racism and police brutality. In fact, the violence in France inspired riots on the streets of Switzerland, which invited tanks to roll on the roads for checking order.

It was amid all this that the US ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti, the other fortnight, referred to the weeks of violence in India’s north eastern state of Manipur and viewed the situation there both as a strategic concern as well as that of human concern. 

His comments provoked sharp reactions in the social media, some of which noted that the US did not make similar comments on the violence in Europe. The strong criticisms could be partly by Garcetti’s comments on the Narendra Modi government, to which Indian External Affairs Minister S Jayshankar made a cryptic remark that when the ambassador would be briefed “pyar se” (with love) after the latter took up his New Delhi post.  

Economic opportunities and narrowing of gap between social classes can check situations from going out of hand. Ongoing events on a variety of fronts, today, begs for appropriate review of the long held development approaches prescribed as an ideology by leading economic democracies. The appraisal should adapt with the new times, emerging powers and clearly changing economic as well as political equations. Without comprehension of the fast growing shift in world order that is tossing up a multipolar scheme of things, the consequences would be painfully prolonged. This is applicable to both the rich and the poor, the militarily mighty and the mediocre.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)